Larry Sanger: How I started Wikipedia, video Options Rating

[Larry Sanger]

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c9mRKFy5fU

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqb-DhgkTTI

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Hold on a moment, according to Henry Blodget's of businessinsider.com "leadership series" video, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had the idea for a volunteer written Encyclopedia in 1999.

And the volunteers really "care about quality"!!!

I still think all these capitalists are just sucking up to jimbo to find out how to get their workers to work for free.

[Larry Sanger]

Hold on a moment, according to Henry Blodget's of businessinsider.com "leadership series" video, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had the idea for a volunteer written Encyclopedia in 1999.

And the volunteers really "care about quality"!!!

I still think all these capitalists are just sucking up to jimbo to find out how to get their workers to work for free.

Yo, Jimmy Wales has lied about many things, but actually not this. He had the notion of a free encyclopedia in late 1999, he has always said, which is when he originally registered Nupedia.com, the domain name. He did not of course have "the idea for Wikipedia" then. He had just the vaguest of ideas--an "open source" encyclopedia.

This post has been edited by Larry Sanger:

[anthony]

Hold on a moment, according to Henry Blodget's of businessinsider.com "leadership series" video, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had the idea for a volunteer written Encyclopedia in 1999.

And the volunteers really "care about quality"!!!

I still think all these capitalists are just sucking up to jimbo to find out how to get their workers to work for free.

Yo, Jimmy Wales has lied about many things, but actually not this. He had the notion of a free encyclopedia in late 1999, he has always said, which is when he originally registered Nupedia.com, the domain name. He did not of course have "the idea for Wikipedia" then. He had just the vaguest of ideas--an "open source" encyclopedia.

Rick Gates had the notion of a free, volunteer written encyclopedia in 1993.

What I wonder is the relationship between Nupedia and Gnupedia.

March 25, 1999: RMS presents The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource to SIGCSE 1999

October 1999: RMS presents The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource to the MacArthur Fellows Reunion

October 29, 1999: Jimmy Wales registers nupedia.com and nupedia.org

February 10, 2000: Jimmy Wales [sic] registers gnupedia.com and gnupedia.org

January 17, 2001: The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource (GNUPedia) is launched by RMS.

Did Jimmy Wales get the idea from RMS, did RMS get the idea from Jimmy, did they both get the idea from someone else, or is it just a strange coincidence? Did Wales attend SIGCSE 1999? Did he listen to the presentation by RMS? Did someone else who attended one of the presentations later mention the idea to Wales?

This post has been edited by anthony: